1. COST 319 objectives

In general terms, the estimation of the mobility-related emissions
can be based on the equation E = e . a, where E
is the amount of emission, e is the emission rate per unit of
activity, and a is the amount of transport activity. This equation
applies to every level, from a single engine to a whole fleet, from a
single road to the whole of Europe or even more. In order to obtain
an estimation of acceptable accuracy, the collaboration of a number
of experts is required : experts on traffic engineering, to provide
data on the mobility activity as well as on the nature and pattern of
this activity, experts on engine and vehicle emissions, to provide
proper emission rates, based on the mobility patterns.
Looking at the development and the evaluation of possible solutions,
the number of experts required to co-operating increases. Indeed the
orientation of the possible solutions and their promotion are
additional important parameters of the problem, and the links and
functional relationships between transport activities and
activity-related emissions have to be determined.
The objectives are to co-ordinate research activities in the field of
direct or indirect emissions of regulated and unregulated pollutants
as well as fuel consumption or energy use by transport modes,
i.e.:

To analyse the methods
applied and the results obtained,

To make a synthesis of the
available data and to develop appropriate tools,

To co-ordinate research.

For the first time the 4
transport modes (road, rail, air and sea) are considered together, as
well as all levels of calculation, from local and instantaneous
emissions to world-wide estimation.

2. Program of the COST 319 action

To fulfil these objectives, the COST 319 action "estimation
of pollutant emissions from transport" was launched in May, 1993 for
a period of 4 years and then 5.5 years, i.e. till October 1998. The
corresponding "Memorandum of Understanding" was signed by 17
countries, members or not of the European Union (Austria, Belgium,
Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland
and United Kingdom). It prolounges the work done in the frame of
CORINAIR and COPERT, some years ago for the European Environmental
Agency (http://www.eea.europa.eu/, or
http://lat.eng.auth.gr/copert/).

The COST initiatives

The COST program ("European
Co-operation in the Field of Scientific Research") is a
Europe-wide program for the co-ordination of national
research, managed by 25 signatory countries and the European
Commission. The COST program typically addresses areas of
research, where concerted action can bring benefit to the
participating countries. With its emphasis on open
participation, COST actively promotes the concept of
"bottom-up working", the research areas being defined by the
participants themselves. COST open and adaptable approach
brings many advantages. It enables avoiding the duplication
of effort, the sharing of results by all participating
countries, the building of a scientific consensus and the
efficient coverage of the complex field of European
research, while allowing the individual countries to focus
on problems of particular interest.

Each main group has been further divided into sub-groups intended
to meet when necessary: 22 sub-groups were working.

3. The MEET project

The researches analysed by the action are very numerous and are
usually funded by national bodies, and sometimes by international
ones. As a lot of synthesis works are needed for complying with the
objectives of the action, a specific project covering partially the
program of the action was being carried out by 16 of the
participants. The European Commission under the transport RTD program
as part of the 4th framework program is funding this project. The 3
main objectives of the project, called Methodologies for
Estimating Air Pollutant Emissions from Transport ( MEET),
are:

To provide a set of data and models, allowing various users of
the project to calculate the pollutant emissions and the fuel or
energy consumption of the various transport modes at strategic
level.

To provide a comprehensive method of calculation using the set
of data and models.

To make sure that this comprehensive method corresponds to the
requirements of the potential users in terms of accuracy,
simplicity and input data availability.

The project is now completed. It covers a large part of the action
program, but does not cover the engine emission maps, neither the
mobility (factor analysis and models), and develops only written
methodologies, but no software package.

4. Outputs

The results obtained allow the development of a set of
methodologies accepted by most of the European experts, which are
presented here. The use of common methods to evaluate emissions and
energy consumption levels all over Europe and possibly more widely
will make the different studies and assessments comparable.
Simultaneously the undertaken actions allow the participating
laboratories to compare and co-ordinate their research methods, and
the European countries to co-ordinate their research programs in
order to fill in the knowledge gap.
In the frame of the COST 319 action and the MEET project - which is a
part of it - a great number of reports were made, each of them being
a synthesis of the European knowledge available, expressing a common
opinion of the involved scientific circles. These reports are
readable on this web site, and also partially at http://www.ulb.ac.be/ceese/
2 reports and a file present an overview of the work done:

The final inventory methodologies with all the necessary data
concerning the emission factors and the traffic characteristics
are presented in the final MEET report. The corresponding data are
transferable from a specific file. The report and the data file
allow any user to carry out an inventory.

The aims of the final COST report are quite different: it
discusses the available data, their accuracy, it presents the
synthesis methods and the assumptions; it should be considered as
a scientific report, especially useful for whom interested in the
building of methods of estimation of pollutant emissions from
transport, rather than for users. In addition the report presents
the scientific and user network, and finally the further research
needs in the field covered by the action.

Then a loat of technical or specialized reports are presented,
focussed on specific points, either for the road emission factors,
the road traffic characteristics, or for the road and non-road
emission tools.

5. Fields of application

The methods developed for calculating pollutant emissions and
considered as the state of the art by the COST action, cover all the
possible applications and all the users' needs. They range from
calculations at a microscopic scale (for a sinhle vehicle, or for a
street) to a macroscopic calculation (regional, national and global
levels) through the inventory of an urban transport network.
In some cases, an absolute estimation of the vehicle emissions should
be made, for instance for calculating input emission data for a
physico-chemical model. But in most applications, a relative
estimation is performed: e.g. when comparing two traffic types, or
when calculating the impact of traffic light management or the
emission evolution over the years.
Therefore the state of the art has been established considering
various application types. Nevertheless homogeneity has not been
reached for these various applications, depending on the aggregation
level of the models and the transport modes. It can therefore be
distinguished:

Disaggregated road models required in particular for assessing
the impact of road vehicle speeds accurately. A comparative and
critical analysis of the available models has been performed.

The basic emission models for road transport, based on a
detailed fleet description, and on the taking into account of the
kinematics through the average speed. They correspond to the major
part of the recorded needs, discarding too macroscopic or
microscopic calculations: a comprehensive model has been developed
(M EET) and is presented in this report.

The aggregated, or simplified, road models, corresponding
mainly to macroscopic uses, are not detailed in this paper.
Simplified models should be calculated by simple integration of
the basic model above presented.

Non-road models (air, rail, waterborne): a model is developed
for each transport mode from currently available
knowledge.>

Therefore the field of application covered in this report is wide
and is liable to be of interest to most specialists and experts in
the transport-related emission field.

6. Comments

If you have comments, remarks, some problems with the proposed
methodology, or if you want to be in contact with the working group,
please send them at
Joumard
R.
If you want get in contact with a laboratory or an expert involved in
a report, please look at its web adresse, mail or email adresse
indicated on this page or in the different reports.

7. Reports

Here are listed the main reports of the COST 319 / MEET working
group. Some of them are available directly as PDF file, other are
available by author's email. In addition the web adresses of the
authors are indicated when available in order to have an overview of
their organism.

8. Other links

-The ARTEMIS project (2000-2004) Assessment and reliability of transport emission
models and inventory systems, funded by the European Commission within the
5th Framework Research Programme, is the next step in transport emission modelling
in Europe after COST 319 and MEET, to be completed by 2004: http://www.trl.co.uk/artemis/

9. Your comments on this web site

If you have difficulties to download any report or to
contact authors, please send a message with the title "problem on
the COST319 web site" at joumard@inrets.fr.